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issued by the Registrar of the Court   ECHR 022 (2013)   22.01.2013   Conviction for speaking Kurdish during election campaigns   breached freedom of expression   In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Şükran Aydin and Others v. Turkey   (application no. 49197/06), which is not final1, the European Court of Human Rights   held, unanimously, that there had been:   a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on   Human Rights.   The case concerned the applicants’ complaint about a law, amended in 2010, which   prohibited the use of any language other than Turkish during election campaigns.   The Court held in particular that, while States had discretion to determine their linguistic   policies and were entitled to regulate the use of languages during election campaigns, a   blanket ban on the use of unofficial languages coupled with criminal sanctions were not   compatible with freedom of expression.   Principal facts   The applicants, Şükran Aydın, Ayşe Gökkan, Ayhan Erkmen, Orhan Miroğlu, and Mesut   Bektaş, are Turkish nationals who were born in 1957, 1965, 1973, 1952 and 1966 and   live in Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Kars, Ankara and Diyarbakır respectively. Candidates (or a   supporter in the case of Mr Erkmen) in the 2002 (Ms Aydın and Ms Gökkan) and 2007   (Mr Miroğlu and Mr Erkmen) parliamentary elections and the 2004 municipal elections   (Mr Bektaş), they were convicted and sentenced to prison terms and fines for having   spoken Kurdish during the election campaigns, in breach of section 58 of Law no. 298.   The judges finally decided to defer delivery of the judgments, or ordered a stay of   execution of the judgments in the case of Ms Şükran Aydın and Ms Ayşe Gökkan, having   taken into account the applicants’ personality and the circumstances of the cases.   In the course of their trials, Ms Aydın, Ms Gökkan and Mr Erkmen submitted they had   addressed the crowd in Kurdish because part of the population could not understand   Turkish (Kurdish people, elderly people and women).   Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court   The applicants complained that their conviction and sentencing simply for speaking   Kurdish during an election campaign had been in breach of their rights under the   Convention. They relied on Articles 6 (right to a fair trial), 9 (freedom of thought), 10   (freedom of expression), 11 (freedom of assembly), 14 (prohibition of discrimination) as   well as Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 (right to free elections).   Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month   period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the   Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further   examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral   request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.   Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for   supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:   www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 28 November   2006.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Guido Raimondi (Italy), President,   Danutė Jočienė (Lithuania),   Peer Lorenzen (Denmark),   Dragoljub Popović (Serbia),   Işıl Karakaş (Turkey),   Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque (Portugal),   Helen Keller (Switzerland),   and also Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar.   Decision of the Court   Article 10   The Court observed that the ban on using non official languages in election campaigning   at the relevant time, prescribed by section 58 of Law no. 298, had directly affected the   applicants and had thus amounted to an interference with their freedom of expression.   The case did not concern the use of an unofficial language in the context of   communications with public authorities2 or before official institutions3, but a linguistic   restriction imposed on persons in their relations with other private individuals. The Court   reiterated that Article 10 encompassed the freedom to receive and impart information   and ideas in any language that allowed persons to participate in the public exchange of   all varieties of cultural, political and social information and ideas.   The Court underlined that the relevant law at the time had contained a blanket   prohibition on the use of any language other than the official language, Turkish, in   election campaigning. Breaches of this provision had entailed criminal sanctions ranging   from six months to one year and payment of a fine. Moreover, Turkish courts had had no   power to exercise judicial scrutiny in this matter and they had not gone, in the   applicants’ cases, beyond checking records and recordings of the election rallies. While   States had discretion to determine their linguistic policies and were entitled to regulate   the use of languages during election campaigns, a blanket ban on the use of unofficial   languages coupled with criminal sanctions were not compatible with freedom of   expression.   Furthermore, Kurdish had been the applicants’ mother tongue as well as the mother   tongue of the population at the rallies. Some of the applicants had stressed that many   people in the crowd, notably the elderly and women, had not understood Turkish. Free   elections were inconceivable without the free circulation of political opinions and   information and noted that Turkey had been the only country - on the basis of the   material available in respect of 22 Contracting States4 - to make the use of minority   As for instance in the judgments of Mentzen v. Latvia of 10 January 2002 or Fryske Nasjonale Partij and   Others v the Netherlands (electoral context) of 12 December 1985   Birk-Lévy v. France (working language in a parliamentary assembly), 21 September 2012   Albania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia,   Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”,   Ukraine and the United Kingdom   languages by candidates speaking at election meetings subject to criminal penalties. The   Court welcomed, in this respect, the amendment of section 58 of Law no. 298 in 2010.   The Court therefore concluded that there had been a violation of Article 10, as the   interference with the applicants’ freedom of expression had not been “necessary in a   democratic society”.   In view of this finding, the Court considered that it was not necessary to examine the   applicants’ complaint under Article 14. It also declared the remainder of their complaints   inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.   Just satisfaction (Article 41)   The Court held that Turkey was to pay each applicant 10,000 euros (EUR) in respect of   non-pecuniary damage and EUR 1,500 each to Ms Gökkan and Mr Miroğlu, EUR 2,000   each to Ms Aydın and Mr Bektaş and EUR 3,000 to Mr Erkmen in respect of costs and   expenses.   Separate opinion   Judge Keller expressed a partly dissenting opinion, which is annexed to the judgment.   The judgment is available only in English.   This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court.   Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on   www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court’s press releases, please subscribe here:   www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en.   Press contacts   [email protected]e.int | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08   Céline Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77)   Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30)   Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79)   Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of   Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European   Convention on Human Rights.   3